(May 10, 2014 at 12:57 am)Heywood Wrote: I'm not interested in discussing if minimum wage is good or bad. This is a much more narrow question. In my youth I used to believe that employers had a moral obligation to pay their employees a living wage. As I have aged...I have abandoned that belief because I could find no compelling reason why it should be so.
So what are the compelling reasons an employer should be obligated to provide all the means of living(the cash equivalent of such in our society) for an employee?
If employers don't pay a living wage, the employee will need to do two or more jobs to makes ends meet. This is not conducive to to the quality of work the employee provides because of tiredness and stress. Also pay rates have to attract talented and efficient employees. The car assembly line workers were paid very good wages not because the work was difficult/demanding - it was because it was boring and repetitive. To retain staff they had to be paid handsomely.
By the way, I strongly object and resent being obliged to pay tips at (particularly American) restaurants. Why should I blood subsidise the employees because the employer is a cheapskate? The employees should demand/agitate for better wages as many employees in other industries have. I will tip only when the standard of service is above and beyond the standard. I'm not expected to tip my child's teacher or the postman, so what makes waiters/waitresses so blooming special?
